VP Vishal Pallagani PhD Dissertation

Dissertation resources

Resources

The research conducted during this PhD resulted in peer-reviewed publications, patents, and released software, tools, platforms, and datasets.

Publications

Peer-reviewed publications

Publications are grouped by year and labeled by contribution type.

2026

4 publications
Conference

On Sample-Efficient Generalized Planning via Learned Transition Models

Gupta, N., Pallagani, V., Aydin, J. A., & Srivastava, B.

Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS).

Conference

SafeGenChat - A Neuro-Symbolic Approach to Dialogs for Trustworthy Information Retrieval Conversations on Sensitive Topics

Aydin, J. A., Lakkaraju, K., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B.

AAAI Spring Symposium on Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering for Knowledge-Grounded Semantic Agents (MAKE).

Tutorial & Lab

SOFAI-LM: A Cognitive Architecture for Building Efficient and Reliable Reasoning Systems with LLMs

Khandelwal, V., Rossi, F., Pallagani, V., Murugesan, K., & Horesh, L.

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Demonstration

Chatsparent: An Interactive System for Detecting and Mitigating Cognitive Fatigue in LLMs

Marwah, R., Pallagani, V., Garimella, R., & Sheth, A.

Proceedings of the Thirty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Demonstrations Track.

2025

6 publications
Conference

Building a Planning Ontology to Represent and Exploit Planning Knowledge and Its Applications

Muppasani, B. C., Gupta, N., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., Mutharaju, R., Huhns, M. N., & Narayanan, V.

Discover Data, 3(1), 55.

Conference

Revisiting LLMs in Planning from Literature Review: a Semi-Automated Analysis Approach and Evolving Categories Representing Shifting Perspectives

Pallagani, V., Gupta, N., Muppasani, B. C., & Srivastava, B.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 386-390.

Conference

NeuroSymbolic Knowledge-Grounded Planning and Reasoning in Artificial Intelligence Systems

Sheth, A., Khandelwal, V., Roy, K., Pallagani, V., & Chakraborty, M.

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 40(2), 27-34.

Conference

A Neurosymbolic Fast and Slow Architecture for Graph Coloring

Khandelwal, V., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., & Rossi, F.

Advances in Cognitive Sciences (ACS).

Article

Thinking Fast and Slow in Human and Machine Intelligence

Fabiano, F., Ganapini, M. B., Loreggia, A., Mattei, N., Murugesan, K., Pallagani, V., Rossi, F., Srivastava, B., & Venable, K. B.

Communications of the ACM, 68(8), pp. 72-79.

Tutorial & Lab

SOFAI Lab: A Hands-on Guide to Building Neurosymbolic Systems with Metacognitive Control

Pallagani, V., Loreggia, A., Fabiano, F., Srivastava, B., Rossi, F., & Horesh, L.

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

2024

8 publications
Conference

Neurosymbolic AI for Enhancing Instructability in Generative AI

Sheth, A., Pallagani, V., & Roy, K.

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 39(5), 5-11.

Conference

On the Prospects of Incorporating Large Language Models (LLMs) in Automated Planning and Scheduling (APS)

Pallagani, V., Muppasani, B. C., Roy, K., Fabiano, F., Loreggia, A., Murugesan, K., Srivastava, B., Rossi, F., Horesh, L., & Sheth, A.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, Vol. 34, pp. 432-444.

Conference

Building a Plan Ontology to Represent and Exploit Planning Knowledge and Its Applications

Muppasani, B., Gupta, N., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., Mutharaju, R., Huhns, M. N., & Narayanan, V.

Eighth International Conference on Data Science and Management of Data (CODS-COMAD'24), India.

Workshop

Comparing Rubik's Cube Solvability in Domain-Independent Planners Using Standard Planning Representations for Insights and Synergy with Upcoming Learning Methods

Muppasani, B., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., & Agostinelli, F.

ICAPS, Heuristics and Search for Domain-Independent Planning Workshop.

Workshop

The Case for Developing a Foundation Model for Planning-like Tasks from Scratch

Srivastava, B., & Pallagani, V.

ICAPS, Planning and Reinforcement Learning Workshop.

Workshop

Plan-SOFAI: A Neuro-Symbolic Planning Architecture

Fabiano, F., Pallagani, V., Ganapini, M. B., Horesh, L., Loreggia, A., Murugesan, K., Rossi, F., & Srivastava, B.

AAAI, Neuro-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning in the Era of Large Language Models Workshop.

Tutorial & Lab

Harnessing Large Language Models for Planning: A Lab on Strategies for Success and Mitigation of Pitfalls

Pallagani, V., Murugesan, K., Srivastava, B., Rossi, F., & Horesh, L.

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Demonstration

Solving the Rubik's Cube with a PDDL Planner

Muppasani, B. C., Pallagani, V., & Srivastava, B.

International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling Demonstration Track.

2023

6 publications
Conference

LLMs for Financial Advisement: A Fairness and Efficacy Study in Personal Decision Making

Lakkaraju, K., Jones, S. E., Vuruma, S. K. R., Pallagani, V., Muppasani, B. C., & Srivastava, B.

Proceedings of the Fourth ACM International Conference on AI in Finance, pp. 100-107.

Article

On Safe and Usable Chatbots for Promoting Voter Participation

Muppasani, B., Pallagani, V., Lakkaraju, K., Lei, S., Srivastava, B., Robertson, B., Hickerson, A., & Narayanan, V.

AI Magazine, 44(3), pp. 240-247.

Workshop

Building and Using a Planning Ontology from Past Data for Performance Efficiency

Muppasani, B., Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., & Mutharaju, R.

ICAPS, Planning and Ontology Workshop.

Workshop

Value-based Fast and Slow AI Nudging

Ganapini, M. B., Fabiano, F., Horesh, L., Loreggia, A., Mattei, N., Murugesan, K., Pallagani, V., Rossi, F., Srivastava, B., & Venable, B.

IJCAI, Ethics and Trust in Human-AI Collaboration: Socio-Technical Approaches Workshop.

Workshop

Plansformer: Generating Symbolic Plans Using Transformers

Pallagani, V., Muppasani, B., Murugesan, K., Rossi, F., Horesh, L., Srivastava, B., Fabiano, F., & Loreggia, A.

NeurIPS, Generalization in Planning Workshop.

Demonstration

Plansformer Tool: Demonstrating Generation of Symbolic Plans Using Transformers

Pallagani, V., Muppasani, B., Srivastava, B., Rossi, F., Horesh, L., Murugesan, K., Loreggia, A., Fabiano, F., Joseph, R., & Kethepalli, Y.

IJCAI, Vol. 2023, pp. 7158-7162. International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence.

2022

1 publication
Workshop

A Rich Recipe Representation as Plan to Support Expressive Multi Modal Queries on Recipe Content and Preparation Process

Pallagani, V., Ramamurthy, P., Khandelwal, V., Venkataramanan, R., Lakkaraju, K., Aakur, S. N., & Srivastava, B.

ICAPS, Workshop on Knowledge Engineering for Planning and Scheduling.

2021

2 publications
Workshop

A Generic Dialog Agent for Information Retrieval Based on Automated Planning Within a Reinforcement Learning Platform

Pallagani, V., & Srivastava, B.

ICAPS, Bridging the Gap Between AI Planning and Reinforcement Learning Workshop.

Demonstration

PRUDENT - A Generic Dialog Agent for Information Retrieval That Can Flexibly Mix Automated Planning and Reinforcement Learning

Pallagani, V., Srivastava, B., & Agrawal, S.

International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling Demonstration Track.

Patents

Patent records

Patent filings and awards connected to safe assistants, planner performance, and multimodal retrieval.

USC 1703

A System and Method to Build Safe and Trustworthy Chatbots

2024

Biplav Srivastava, Kausik Lakkaraju, Vishal Pallagani, Bharath C. Muppasani.

USC 1702

Unsupervised Plan Summarization to Improve Planner Performance and Human Interpretability

2024

Biplav Srivastava, Vishal Pallagani.

USC 1649

Improving Planner Performance by Learning and Using Metadata of Experiences

2023

Biplav Srivastava, Vishal Pallagani, Bharath Muppasani.

USC 1587 - US 12,332,873

Multimodal Retrieval and Execution Monitoring Using Rich Recipe Representation

2022, awarded June 2025

Biplav Srivastava, Kausik Lakkaraju, Revathy Venkataramanan, Vishal Pallagani, Vedant Khandelwal.

USC 1532 - US 12,067,983

Robust Useful and General Task-Oriented Virtual Assistants

2022, awarded Aug. 2024

Biplav Srivastava, Kausik Lakkaraju, Revathy Venkataramanan, Vishal Pallagani, Vedant Khandelwal, Joey Yip.

P202203822US01

Plansformer - A Transformer Planner

2022

Francesca Rossi, Lior Horesh, Vishal Pallagani, Biplav Srivastava, Andrea Loreggia.

Open Source

Software, platforms, and datasets

Tools and datasets developed and released as part of the dissertation.

Tool

SOFAI Framework

Code

Tools & Dataset

Harnessing Language Models for Planning

Repository

Tools & Dataset

Sample-Efficient Generalized Planning via Transition Models

Repository

Tools

Tokenization for Transition Models

Repository

Tool & Dataset

LLM x Planning Taxonomy Visualization

Code Live